A mothers love
by ladylaughalot
Summary: What could have been... An insight into the relationship of Harry and Hermione, from Hermione's mother. It's not Canon, but it could have been.


A/N This story was inspired by a thread on the forums speculating on the relationship between Hermione and her parents. Please don't ask if I'm going to update Consequences or Accidentally married, my muse is flighty and will not focus on those stories. Perhaps now that this little plot bunny has been taken care of that may change, but I can unfortunately make no guarantees. On with the show, I hope you enjoy it. Sorry for any mistakes, it is completely un-betad.

What more could a mother hope for?

Harry Potter was the first thing I learned about the Wizzarding World, aside from its very existence and Hogwarts of course. My daughter was given her letter in our sitting room by Professor McGonagall and in a flurry of excited activity left to collect her books before her father and I had fully absorbed the impact of this startling news. When my daughter returned from her trip, her arms were loaded down with all manner of strange parcels and her cheeks were pink with excitement.

'Oh mother!' she exclaimed as she burst in the door, 'it's all so exciting isn't it, I've never seen so many interesting and amazing things in all my life!' I was about to ask her to elaborate further but she barely stopped for breath.

'I've bought all my school books and a few extra for background reading, I'm going to read them now.' She rushed up the stairs and left me gaping in her wake. Still I like to consider myself a patient woman and, as she was doing nothing more dangerous than sitting in her bedroom reading, I decided that I would wait and let her tell me all about it in her own good time.

As it turned out I didn't have to wait too long, that very evening around the dinner table she started to tell us something about the new world she was entering. She had been reading a rather thick book at the table as we ate, I normally wouldn't have allowed it but I decided these were exceptional circumstances. She looked up at me a thoughtful look on her face, 'I think that's rather hard' she said suddenly.

'What is dear?' I asked my curiosity evident.

'Oh' she said seeming to realise she'd spoken aloud, 'Well there is a boy named Harry Potter and his parents were killed by an evil wizard, the wizard tried to kill him too, but for some reason, and no-one knows why, when he tried instead of killing the boy he died himself.'

'I see,' I said not understanding at all.

'They call him "the boy who lived", and he's written about in several of my books.'

'really?' I asked, more to prompt her to continue talking than for any other reason.

'Yes, and I just can't help but think that it must be awful to be famous for being orphaned. I can't imagine how I would feel in his place.'

She didn't say anything more about him that night, but I like to think that was the beginning. After that night I heard about Harry twice more before Hermione even met him, once when she discovered that he had been raised by muggle relatives (when she asked if I thought he knew about how famous he was or not) and once when she discovered he was a few months younger than she and would be in her year at Hogwarts. When I learnt that I think we were both eager for her to meet him and see what he was like. Her first letter home, perhaps as a sign for things to come, was full of little else.

_Dear Mum & Dad,_

_Well I have arrived safely at Hogwarts which I think is somewhere in Scotland. It's a magnificent old castle with so many corridors, stairways and turrets that I feel sure I'll spend more of my time trying to find my classes than actually being in them._

_I was sorted into Gryffindor, which is the house noted for bravery and not surprisingly I suppose Harry Potter was also sorted into Gryffindor. I met him on the train and I have to say I was a little surprised at how normal he seemed. He didn't know he was in any books at all and seems just as overwhelmed by all of this as I feel. It's quite comforting really, that he is overwhelmed by Hogwarts makes me feel a little less silly for feeling the same way. He really seems very nice and polite, though his friend is a bit of an idiot. Still I doubt I'll have very much to do with either of them even if we are in the same house. The girls in my year seem very nice and hopefully I'll make good friends with them._

_I best go to sleep now._

_Love_

_Hermione._

As you can imagine, when we received this letter her father and I were amused to think that Hermione had already developed a crush and pleased to think she was settling in well. Her next few letters were a little more concerning, they were still full of Harry and his stupid friend (we didn't learn his name until after Halloween), but it didn't appear that Hermione had made any friends at all. She wrote only about Harry and the mischief he'd gotten into and how he was unimpressed when she had tried to stop him from doing anything stupid, a little about her classes and the things she'd learnt and nothing else. If she had made friends I knew she would have written about it, our daughter had never made friends easily so a new friend had always been big news. It wasn't until after Halloween that there was any news of friends at all, when we received the following letter.

_Dear Mum & Dad,_

_The Halloween feast was simply wonderful! Harry ate so much I could barely believe it, but he told me that his relatives aren't very nice to him and he doesn't often get enough to eat at home. It's hard to imagine anyone being mean to him, he is so nice, but he said that they didn't like his parents and that's why they are mean to him. _

_We have our first Quidditch match of the season coming up too. I know it's going to be exciting. Harry is seeker for the Gryffindor team, he's the youngest house player in a century. He's scared he will make a fool of himself in front of the school but I'm sure he'll be brilliant, he is an awfully good flyer. I told him he must have inherited his flying from his dad and he didn't know that his father had been on the house team too._

_I think it must be awful not to know anything about your parents like that. Harry said that his relatives never spoke about them and he wasn't allowed to ask questions. I couldn't imagine not being able to ask questions, I think they must be terrible people. I remember how I asked so many questions when I was little and you were both so patient with me._

_I do think that if nothing else his awful relatives have had the effect of making Harry awfully nice. I know you would both really like him, his friend Ron I'm not so sure of. He's funny I suppose but you should see him eat! He just shovels food into his mouth and then talks with his mouth full! It's awful!_

_Anyway I best go Harry and Ron and I are going to visit Hagrid this afternoon._

_Love _

_Hermione._

'I think our daughter has made some friends' I said to my husband my astonishment evident.

'I think she has a little bit of a crush on this Harry too.' My husband replied with equal astonishment.

You mustn't think we were astonished that our daughter had made friends, it was that the tone of her letter was so different to the last. Her last letter was all about Harry too but it had been angry and a little sad with an edge of loneliness creeping in at times. This letter was so very different and yet didn't offer any explanation for the difference, it seemed that overnight the three of them had become friends for no apparent reason. Of course our next letter had asked the obvious question of how they had become friends and it was then that we heard how Harry had, with apparently reluctant help from his friend Ron, saved Hermione's life.

To say that we were looking forward to meeting 'wonder boy', as my husband took to calling him, would be a vast understatement. When Hermione came home for Christmas that year it seemed everything she had to say in some way involved Harry. By the time Hermione went back to Hogwarts for the remainder of the school year we knew as much about Harry as she did. At the end of the school year we waited for her at Kings Cross Station and passed the time by trying to guess who of the people waiting about were Harry's awful relatives. When Hermione finally appeared from the barrier hauling her trunk she was in the company of two young boys, we knew immediately which of them was Harry, from Hermione's descriptions of the two boys, but unfortunately any hope we had of being introduced was spoiled when the big angry looking man (the one we picked as his uncle) collared him and dragged him away.

'Hello pumpkin,' Greg said pulling our daughter into a big hug, 'how was your trip?'

Hermione returned her father's hug enthusiastically, 'It was great Daddy, we played exploding snap and had chocolate frogs and pumpkin pasties for lunch.'

'Chocolate frogs hey?' he said releasing her and picking up her trunk, 'well we'll have to get you home to brush your teeth then won't we?'

Hermione laughed and came to give me a hello hug, she'd always been Daddies little girl and I had long ago accepted that I would get my hug only once Daddy had his.

'Hi Mum,' she said wrapping her arms around me.

'Hi Darling,' I said as I returned her hug, then I held her at arms length and had a good look at her, 'you look wonderful sweetie.' I told her sincerely.

It was true, she did look wonderful, her cheeks were flushed with health and her eyes sparkled with happiness, certainly something about this new school of hers agreed with her very well. I had my suspicions as to what, or rather who, it was that agreed with her so well.

'Thanks Mum,' she said smiling, 'It's so good to see you both again, I've missed you so much.'

I smiled at her sweet lie, it was easy to see that whatever she had been up to while she was away, and I was certain we'd only heard part of it, she hadn't been missing us all that much.

'We've missed you too baby, now come on lets get you in the car, we want to hear everything that we haven't already about your time at school.'

After we'd been in the car for five minutes, my husband and I in the front and Hermione chatting away animatedly in the back, Greg and I started what has hereafter always been referred to as the "Harry-o-meter", that is we started counting the number of times Hermione said Harry's name. By the time we got home, a short twenty minutes later, Hermione had said "Harry" 55 times. I was astounded, I'd never heard her so talk so enthusiastically about anything before in her life and I'd never seen her happier. Of course we didn't tell her that we'd been counting but 55 became our secret code word whenever something happened to show how smitten our daughter was with this young man. By the time summer was nearly over and we were going to Diagon Alley to get Hermione's schoolbooks for the following year to say we were very interested to meet Harry ourselves would be the understatement of the century.

We had heard all about the hardships that he had suffered at the hands of his relatives and the dramatic rescue efforts of the Weasley boys. We knew that Harry was with the Weasleys and so we knew that he would be at Diagon Alley and we would finally have a chance to meet the young man of whom we had heard so much. Honestly Harry himself was a little anti-climatic, there was so much to see and do in this world populated by witches, wizards, goblins and goodness knows what else. Also we didn't really see that much of him, we were introduced and he said hello, he seemed polite and cute in a skinny and bespeckled kind of way but we hardly saw him much less spoke to him so it was very difficult to form any kind of judgement. We did notice that our daughter wasn't the only young girl with a crush, Ron's little sister Ginny seemed to also be infatuated with him. We thought this spoke well of him, any young girl who had five older brothers was not likely to be easily impressed by a boy. Not that we valued any young girls opinion over Hermione's but it did lend a certain validation to all that she'd been saying. We also saw and were impressed by his handling of the impromptu press call he'd been dragged in to.

Of course on the drive back home all of this had to be re-counted for Hermione. Our opinion of everyone, but Harry in particular, was imperative. We did the best we could but we had so little time to see and speak with the people we had met and there had been so many other things to notice that our opinions were vague at best and (apparently) down right wrong at worst. For example Mr Weasley succeeded in impressing us that he was a bit of a lunatic, when he wasn't asking us odd questions about the most mundane of things he was having fist fights in bookstores. Hermione was quick to explain this behaviour and we learnt that far from being a bit of a lunatic Mr Weasley was really a very nice, good and kind man. Not surprisingly it was our assessment of Harry that irritated Hermione the most, our "he seemed very nice" was apparently insufficient praise. So we were treated once more to the tale of his childhood and how very amazing it was that he had grown up to be so polite and sweet. By the end of that car trip the "Harry-o-meter" was off the scale and Greg and I were a little worried. Certainly we were pleased that our daughter had made friends and was happy but we were also starting to get a little worried that so much of our daughters new found happiness seemed to rely on just one boy.

The following year was when we first started to become concerned that this world, of which our daughter seemed destined to be a part, was a little more dangerous than the world we were used to. At first we considered that the new dangers she was exposed to weren't any more dangerous than those she would be exposed to living at home with us. Certainly there was a much slimmer chance of her being petrified by a giant snake if she went to the local high school but during her time at Hogwarts she would never travel anywhere by car and thus had significantly less chance of being involved in a car accident. So we consoled ourselves that although danger had been increased in some ways it had also been reduced in others. We were extremely upset and worried when we heard that Hermione had been petrified but Professor McGonagall assured us that they knew the cure and it just took a little bit of time to prepare but once it had been administered she would be up and about again without any problems.

Hermione's father and I like to consider ourselves as rational human beings so we considered the situation. We considered our options, we could remove Hermione from Hogwarts and send her to a local school or we could leave her at Hogwarts and just accept this new world that she had become a part of. As much as logically we felt she wasn't really at any more danger at Hogwarts than elsewhere, emotionally the unusual types of danger that she was now exposed too seemed far more dangerous. In the end our decision had to be based on what we considered would be the happiest life for our daughter and as much as we tried to rationalise bringing her home we just couldn't. Terrible things happen to people all the time and there is no preventing it, Hermione could die tomorrow at Hogwarts after being attacked by a giant snake or she could die tomorrow here just by crossing the road. Above and beyond all of that we knew that if we were to bring her home she would be miserable.

For the first time in her life our daughter had friends and she was happy and we just could not bring ourselves to take that away from her. Every year it seemed Hermione and her friends were involved in some new dangerous type of mischief, Hermione was always very forthcoming with details of all of their misadventures, but I must say we were still very naive in all of this. We knew she'd been involved in some dangerous things while away at school but it wasn't until her fifth year after she was hospitalised after leaving the school and fighting with a dangerous group of people that we realised the amount of danger she got herself involved in wasn't normal for students of that school. It wasn't even a case where bad luck, being in the wrong place or anything like that. The incident at the end of her fifth year brought it to our attention that it was all related to Hermione's friendship with Harry. She even admitted that she knew they were walking into a trap but that she had gone anyway in order to help and support him.

It was quite simply unacceptable and it had to stop. So we sat her down and we explained to her that although we were very pleased that she was fitting in so well at Hogwarts and had made such good friends she really needed to think about her own position before acting. We were all sitting together in the living room the evening before she went off to the Weasley's for the remainder of her holidays. We sat her down and I looked at her seriously while her father spoke, we felt that she would take his words more to heart being as she had always been such a daddy's girl.

'Sweetie, we just wanted to talk to you about what happened at the end of your last term at school. We know that you don't think that we understand what you're going through and you're probably right, we probably don't.' He paused and gave Hermione a chance to speak, but she didn't. She just continued to sit looking down at her hands folded in her lap.

'We have watched and listened as your friendship with Harry and Ron grew over the years and we like them, we do. They have done so much for your self confidence, we know that their friendship has made a real difference in your life over the years and we're not asking you to give that up.' He paused again, but again Hermione remained uncharacteristically silent.

'All we wanted to say is that, the next time you are in a situation where you believe a course of action will lead you into danger for no reason, whether you're being led into a trap or the benefits don't outweigh the risks, that you follow your better judgement.'

Hermione still wasn't speaking, her father and I exchanged worried glances and I took that as my cue to speak.

'Sweetie, we're not asking you to compromise your principles, we're actually asking the exact opposite. We want you to think about your actions and do what you believe is best. From what you've told us, you knew you were walking into a trap and you went anyway…' I trailed off for a second trying to put together in my mind the message I was trying to convey to her, after a second I spoke again, 'you could have died and if you'd listened to your instincts you would never have been there. We just want you to listen to your instincts in future and not put yourself in danger unnecessarily.'

My husband then spoke again, 'Harry and Ron are your best friends, and I really believe they are good friends. If they really are good friends then they will understand when you do what you think is best.'

She looked up then first at her father and then at myself, and we could both see that her eye's glistened with unshed tears.

'You're right, I promise it won't happen again.' We both smiled at her.

'That's all we're asking for sweetie' her father said and then we both gave her a big hug.

The year that followed that talk was the worst that Hermione had ever had at Hogwarts. Every letter we got home from her seemed more like our pre-Hogwarts Hermione and less like the happy confident Hermione we'd come to know and love over the last few years. Her father and I had no doubt that it was as a result of feeling estranged from Harry. For the first time in the history of their friendship she was refusing to help in his plots and mischief and it was easy to tell from her letters that it was creating a rift in their friendship. For the first time in years she came home for Christmas, and though we were delighted to have her neither of us were happy with the result of our little chat back in August. So when she came home I decided that although my little girl had always been a daddy's girl perhaps it was time for me to talk to her woman to woman.

I made the decision just after she'd left the table from what had been a quiet and unhappy Christmas dinner. Greg and I sat at the table in silence for a few minutes after she'd left the table.

'This isn't right,' Greg said suddenly, I looked at him and saw the worry in my heart reflected in his eyes.

'I'm going to talk to her,' I said and I stood up and followed my daughter up the stairs to her bedroom. When I got there I pushed open the door and saw her lying on her bed on her stomach, her face buried in her pillow.

I entered her room cautiously and sat down on the bed beside her, she must have known I was there but she didn't stir.

'Hermione, sweetie, what's wrong?' I asked brushing her hair back away from her face and gently stroking her cheek. My heart twisted painfully in my chest to see her like this.

I sat silently then, it was an old trick my mother used to use on me. If you wait long enough eventually people always start talking just to fill the silence and then you can really find out what's on their mind.

'When did things get so complicated mum?' she asked a sob in her voice, I stayed silent waiting for her to tell me what was so complicated. I had assumed it was something to do with Harry, so what she said next really surprised me.

'It's just Ron is being such a jerk and Harry, he's trying to be there for me but he's got so much on and I'm trying not to be involved in it too much because I'm trying not to mess up again like last year, but I'm so scared that I'm messing up even worse by not being involved.'

I sat in shock for a moment trying to process all that she'd said.

'How about we begin at the beginning hmm?' I asked drying her tears with my thumb, 'Tell me what's been happening with Ron and we'll see if we can figure that out.'

So out it all came, and I must say that of all the things Hermione would tell me that could surprise me I never expected it to be this. She thought Ron had a crush on her. He'd always acted jealously whenever she gave attention to other boys and he'd gotten really angry with her when she'd refused to go with him to a ball once. She had decided to encourage him this year, apparently she wasn't particularly confident that they would be good together but at least it would put the matter to rest. After giving all kinds of hints to him that she was receptive to the idea she'd finally given up on that track and just asked him to go with her to a Christmas party. Then no sooner had he accepted then he went and started dating another girl kissing her all over the castle right in front of Hermione's face. I was astonished, after all these years it had never occurred to me that I would end up listening to Hermione's tales of heartache about any boy other than Harry, and certainly not Ron.

'Well what does Harry think of all of this?' I asked rubbing small circles on my daughters back.

'He's been really great mostly, when Ron and I had that fight he defiantly took my side, he followed after me and has tried to be comforting. But Harry is so busy with Quidditch Captain duties and he's having special lessons with Dumbledore. I just don't see him that much, I've got prefect duties as well and I've been going to Slug Club meetings but Harry doesn't even though he's been invited. We just don't see each other that much, but when we do he's been good as much as he can anyway, he's so emotionally repressed he's just not good at comforting. Besides he's convinced there's this evil plot going on and I just don't trust that anymore, not after what happened last year.'

I didn't speak, I didn't know what to say.

'What should I do mum?' she said asking the one question every mother dreads. I want to help my daughter but giving advice, especially about things like this, is a dangerous business.

'Honey, one of the things I've always admired about you is your intelligence. I'm sure that I don't have to tell you that however good Ron may be as a friend, he's not treating you the way you would want to be treated by your boyfriend.'

She sniffed and sat up beside me on the bed, 'that's true, I know that, I do. I just thought he liked me, you know, and sometimes I feel like he's the only boy that ever will.' I shook my head at her and put my arm around her shoulders.

'Hermione, I know that's not true. Not only are you an intelligent, insightful and loving person, but you've also grown into quite a beautiful young woman. I have no doubt that in your life time you will have many men admire you, and one day you will meet someone very special that you will love and who will love you in return.'

She smiled at me, a sad little smile 'and what about Harry?' she asked, 'what should I do about him and this evil plot he is convinced is going on right under our noses.'

I sighed, I couldn't encourage her to help him but with all the things that had gone on at that school he could very well be right so I couldn't, in good conscience, tell her not to help him.

'Honestly love, I just don't know. You know the circumstances much better than I do so you're in a better position to judge. I trust your judgement Hermione, if you think Harry is onto something then do what you think necessary, if you think he's being paranoid then try not to get caught up in it.'

'What if I'm not sure?' she asked looking at me like I could solve all the worlds' problems.

'If your not sure, well, proceed with caution I suppose. But the most important thing is to listen to your heart and do what you think is right.'

She smiled at me then, I real smile this time, 'thanks mum.' She said and gave me a hug.

'Anytime, sweetie.' I said and hugged her back.

I was so proud of myself after that talk, as amazed as I was that, of the two boys, it was Ron she was thinking of dating, I still really felt that I had helped her work through some of her problems. Certainly by the time she went back to school she seemed, if not happier, then at least more calm and centred. It seemed to me that our conversation was a really a turning point for her, she seemed to have matured somewhat. The blind enthusiasm and devotion that she had once had for Harry was gone but she also seemed to be more settled and less uncertain than she had in the previous semester. I thought that it was all going very well, Hermione mentioned a few times in her letters that Harry was still convinced of an evil plot and that so far she had proceeded cautiously as per our discussion, and I was happy with her decision until we received the letter from her school saying that term was to end early due to the murder of Professor Dumbledore by one of the school teachers. Of course we then knew that Harry's paranoia wasn't paranoia at all, after all you're not paranoid if people really are out to get you. A few days later Hermione arrived on our doorstep and announced that she, together with Ron and Harry were off to fight in a war and that if the school re-opened (which she doubted) she wouldn't be returning. There were far more important things to be doing than schoolwork anyway and there just wouldn't be time.

Needless to say her father and I were both stunned. If someone had asked me back in Hermione's first year to predict two things about her years at Hogwarts I would have said she'd eventually ask me for advice on boys, with reference to Harry, and she'd graduate top of her class. I would never have thought she'd ask for advice about boys, with reference to Ron (the boy who was referred to as the idiot friend of Harry's for the first semester of her first year) or that she would drop out. I'm afraid her father and I went a bit nuts over this amazing pronouncement. Eventually she made us understand that she had made up her mind and she was telling us out of respect, not because we had a say in the matter and that she was an adult and there was really nothing we could do about it. Of course my own words from our talk at Christmas were thrown back in my face, incidentally this is exactly what I meant about giving advice, and eventually we just had to accept the decision that she'd made. Personally I was done with giving advice at that point but Greg still thought it prudent to impart words of wisdom.

'We just don't want you to regret missing out on graduating Hermione, you can live to regret what you didn't do just as easily as you can live to regret what you did do.'

'I know dad,' Hermione replied earnestly, 'but I could die before I graduate just as easily if I don't do anything as I could if I do something. I promise if I survive this I will go back to school and finish my education.'

After that we just had to watch her leave and we didn't see her at all after that for at least eight months. Those eight months were the worst of my life, not just because I was worried sick for my little girl and the kind of dangerous things she might be involved in but also because violence was suddenly breaking out everywhere and we just knew that it was all related. We lived in constant fear that it would soon come to our house and we had no idea what to do about it. We didn't know if our daughter was alive or dead and we didn't know if each day might be our last. About four months after Hermione's announcement that she'd dropped out of school Harry's beautiful snowy white owl Hedwig (whom we'd had the pleasure of meeting a few times over the years) delivered what, from all appearances, was a hastily scrawled note from our daughter. The note read _"I'm still alive, I've made arrangements for you to be notified if that changes. All my love Hermione."_

We read the note and collapsed against each other, our breathing was heavy as we both tried not to break down into tears.

'Well,' I said at last looking up at my husband, 'at least she's being practical.'

It was a stupid thing to say and after that neither of us had the strength to maintain the pretence anymore. We clung to each other and sobbed, we cried as though we had just been told our daughter was dead rather than alive. Until that point we had convinced ourselves that despite everything we were overdramatising how much danger she was in. We told ourselves that it couldn't possibly be as bad as we thought it was, that it looked much worse than it could possibly be. Now we had lost the ability to hide from the truth, it was laid out for us as simply as it could possibly be. Our daughters life was in very real danger every day, she was prepared for the worst and we were unprepared for the possibility that any day we could get the very worst news a parent can imagine. That is how we lived for the remainder of the year.

The next time Hedwig graced our windowsill it was like seeing a reaper, Greg and I were petrified. The news had been fairly slow over the last few days, they were going over stories of some tragedies that had occurred recently but there hadn't been any new incidents in at least a week. We had started to hope that it might all be over, that any day we might get word from our daughter that everything would be ok rather than getting news of the other kind. Now here we were faced with news and fear prevented us from finding out if we should celebrate or mourn. Finally my husband gathered his nerve and removed the letter from Hedwig's leg, I let out a sigh of relief when she didn't immediately fly away. Obviously she had been instructed to wait for our response, I felt, that this was a very good sign and my spirits rose enough to lean into my husbands arm and read the note with him.

_Dear Mum & Dad,_

_We did it, it's over and we have all come out alive. I have missed you both so much and I know how dreadfully worried you must have been, especially after my last letter. I'm so sorry to have left you with that, but at the time it seemed sensible and I hoped that it would give you some comfort each night to be able to go to sleep and know that I was still okay. I felt that it would be better than the terrible uncertainty of not knowing. I am being released from hospital tomorrow morning (don't worry my injuries were not severe and have all been fully healed) and I would like nothing more than to come home._

_Please let me know by return owl if that would be ok._

_I love you both very much and I hope to see you soon._

_Hermione._

Of course we wrote back immediately that she should come home as soon as she could, that we missed her and that we loved her. The next morning at eight am our daughter nocked on our front door. The next twenty minutes were spent laughing, crying, embracing and generally gibbering excitedly at each other all on our front step. We got Hermione and her things inside, she moved back into her room and I put the kettle on. Our daughter had a lot of explaining to do and explain she did. She sat at our kitchen table in our boringly mundane "muggle" household and told us of battles and magic, stress and struggle. She told us all about the rise and fall of the self-titled megalomaniac "Lord Voldemort" and about her part in it. When she was finished we sat stunned staring into our lukewarm cups of tea. I felt like I didn't know this woman across from me. She was so different not only from myself or the daughter I had expected to raise but she was also completely outside of my sphere of experience.

So I sat watching my tears fall into my cup of tea without the faintest idea of what to say to my daughter about all that she had been through. Thankfully she spoke again and saved me the trouble.

'There is one other thing.' She said and her voice was so hesitant that it immediately put fear into my heart.

'What else could there be?' Greg asked incredulously, voicing my own thoughts.

'Well, it's nothing bad, it's just…' she paused and took a sip of her tea, 'Harry and I have become a couple.' She blurted out and just like that I felt like maybe I did know my daughter after all.

My husband and I looked at each other and started to smile, '55' we said together and we started to laugh. For the first time in over a year we really laughed.

'What?' Hermione demanded looking from one to the other of us as we both howled with genuine unrestrained laughter, 'What's so funny? What does 55 mean?'

'55,' Greg replied wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, 'is the number of times you said Harry on the journey from Kings Cross to home at the end of your first year.'

'You were counting that?' Our daughter asked incredulously her eye's wide with amazement, 'and you remembered?'

'Well,' I said finally beginning to regain my composure, '55 became a rather memorable number after that.'

'Well he's coming to visit tomorrow and if either of you so much as whispers the number 55 I will be very angry.' She said and flounced out of the room. I had not felt such a wonderful comfort in the longest time, everything was as it should be.

The next morning when I answered the door to a handsome young man with scruffy black hair and bright green eyes I could barely contain my smile.

'Hello Mrs Granger, I'm Harry.'

'I know Harry, I'm so pleased to finally meet you properly.' His polite manner and shy smile as he entered our home for the first time and shook my husbands hand convinced me beyond any doubt that he was everything Hermione had ever credited him with. After everything he'd done and everything he'd been through there was something so genuine and sincere about his manner that he had me completely won over when he'd barely said two words. Then I saw his eye's light up as our daughter entered the room and I saw an answering light in my daughter's eyes. I knew then that we had made the right decisions for our daughter. She would get her happy ending and really what more can a mother hope for?


End file.
